BIGGER THAN LIFE....

Who is going to follow Ted Kennedy? The bigger
than life Senator?

The likes of Tip O'Neil, Mike Mansfield
Sam Huston...whether you like them or not, they
were bigger than life. People could name them and
not name their own congressperson.

It isn't longevity, because Green, Byrd, Thurmond,
Johnson, Pepper, Foley, Wilson and Hatch were/are
forces to be reckon with, but not to the point of these men
above.

Where will our next bigger than life congress person
come from? After all it could be a woman..but I kind of
doubt it.

Bonner County Fair pic's

The first place that the King starts off with is.... the tractors... many memories
of those of years past, in his childhood days of work... on the Bandy, Glabb, and Lawson
farms and his own family of Vay.



The greeter of the wildlife building...


Marianne and mine favorite stop

The Republicans were there....

BUT where were the Democrats... guess they figure they have it in the bag...

Marianne Love's onions were huge...but......

These beat her out....

Those who passed before us.... great names in 4-H and Bonner County fairs of past.

A fair is not a fair without elephant ears... the King threaten to kill me if I took a

picture of him putting it in his mouth... so settled for his hands.

Then finishing up with the quilts...one of my favorites...

PRESIDENT OBAMA....TEAR DOWN THAT WALL!!!

Obama needs to tear down the wall between the people and
himself. The wall that is made up of his cabinet.

How can you be seen as our leader, when your cabinet
member overrules what your wish are. Case in point is,
your desire to put the Bush policy for prisoners, behind you
and get on with business, yet your cabinet member in
charge of that, is overruling you and going ahead with
an investigation. How is finding out who and why, change
thing? All I see is a huge expense to name names, and
and then what? Nothing will be done except to say shame
on you. You shouldn't have done it, Cheney and Rumsfield.

Let's get on with business of straighten out this country.
It is bad enough that they printed out the report of what
was done for the public to see ...heck the whole world to
see. This would be fine, if we had an equal amount of report
on what the enemy has done... all of it, not just the things
we have seen on television.

Rest Areas

While you travel, one of the two most important
things are rest areas and where do they have good
coffee.

Rating Rest Areas.....

Montana... going East ...rated at D to F.
F- for the first 100 or 150 miles they have what
I thought was a shed.. it is a outhouse type,
short one. The rest of the East bound were
D- because they were dirty and some almost
out of paper.
Westbound fair much better. Clean and working.

North Dakota Rest Area

North Dakota... gets A for class and cleanliness.
They have ones that look like train depots. Every
thing is in side. Also not too far apart. Bathrooms
roomy and whole building very clean.

Washington gets A + from me. Two things.. they
tell how far to the next one (so does ND) and they
are clean... and most importantly... they have little
area that has COFFEE!!! They have volunteers who
have free coffee and cookies. You can donate if you
like and we always do, as we want to encourage them
to keep it up.

Minnesota, we didn't visit the rest areas, as we weren't
in the state long enough... And same with Wisconsin.

Montana, there was over 100 miles for the next coffee, and
you had to go into town to get it. I stupidly passed as I thought
there was another town up next to get one.. and there was...
99 miles... later.

Best coffee was Pilot and McDonalds. God awful coffee at a
Sinclair gas station in North Dakota.

View from the road...

Travelling the roads of the USA.
As you can see by the pictures, we did cover a lot
of roads within two day, twice.

I guess the thing I learn was, there is a lot of
RECOVERY money being spent on the highways.
Yes, it is paid by us. But it should have been done
over the past 10 years and that too, would be on us.
That is what we were told all those taxes on our gases
were for. So one way or the other we pay.

The other is how much money I saw in farm equipment
and it was being used. While the dairy's seem to be
pretty quiet,....soybean, corn, and sunflowers are surely live and well.

We also saw how different life seems in the mid-west than
here. We found Wisconsin, like Idaho use to be years ago.
It was wonderful and if we were 30 years younger we would
really seriously think about moving there. Small towns,
Mom and Pop business, and even the attitude is laid back.

When we came home, we expected the house to look like it
did when we left. When we walked in, I am sure we looked like
the families on Extreme Makeover. The rug had been shampooed.
Our couch was gone and a new on in place. In fact the whole
house was clean. Like maid service. Even one of my troubled
plants was repotted. We were blown away. Seems that a few
people wanted to surprise us... and that they did.
Thank you so much, L, S, and G. It is great to have friends.

And it is great to be home.

OUT WITH OLD......

......IN WITH THE NEW

Maiden Voyage of Men and Boys and their toys

We gave up dinners on the town, and traveling for 3 years... to save up for two things.
A trip to Wisconsin and the Ken's boat so we could enjoy the lake.

HERE WE GO....

WE ARE ON THE WATER... and not in it.. lol

IS HE HAPPY?

Things we saw.....

Easy traffic except in St. Paul

We got to ride in this... my son restored it.

He also restored this one

This is his play toy.... the King had a heck of a time climbing out of it, while in this position..

And nights were great conversation around the open fire...

Once on the road we saw.....

the Big Buffalo of Jamestown, N.D.

The tall cow of New Salem, N.D.

The view standing next to the cow, on School hill, and looking down across the valley...

Into Montana and the Painted Canyon

And THE LADY IN WHITE.. by Butte, Montana

The oil well pumps of Montana

The lone stack still standing to remind people of what was the past.

FOR AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

AS FAR AS THE EYE COULD SEE... MOUNTAINS TO THE LEFT AND RIGHT, AND FIELDS IN THE MIDDLE THAT GO BACK FURTHER THAN YOU CAN SEE.


ONE OF THE SIGHTS WE SAW, WE TURN AROUND AND SAW THIS.. THE VIEW WAS BREATHE TAKEN....

FIELDS OF SUNFLOWERS...

THE ROAD WAS LONG....VERY LONG....

AND MORE SUNFLOWERS...

CORN THE #1 PRODUCT GROWN ACROSS AMERICA.... EVERY STATE...

MORE NEXT WEEK.....

Gone on Vacation

The Difference between Men and Boys...

Is the price of their toys....

The King is in his glory. He has been saving up for
this for over a year. He picked it up Thursday.
Then we had to go out of town Friday and Saturday.

Saturday afternoon and Sunday, I only saw him for
about 15 minutes. He was in the boat... He has spent
a little bit each night. But the frustrating part is he wants
to do so much more...but we are leaving for 10 days.

So I am sure he has made a mental list of to do things, for
when we get home.

So as of Friday, really really early am... we will head across the
states to Wisconsin. Leaving behind the computer. So no emails,
no blog writing or reading... just the King, the dog, and I.

So you all behave yourselves.... God willing and the creek don't
rise, we will be there and back in 10 days.

Everything is ..........fault

Fill in the blank... everything is my
father's fault... or my mother's fault.
Which is what you hear young adults
and some times mid-life adults say.

The truth of the matter is...
everything that happens to you
between the ages of 0 to 18 is
yours and your parents fault.

Everything that happens from 18 to
now, is your fault.
You are in the drivers seat and have
been since you got out of high school.

It is not your parents duty to make you
happy after you turn 18. It is your duty.
If they want to help you, that is ok, but
it is NOT their duty.

They don't OWE you anything. It is up to
you to go out and make something of your
self, for you to make yourself happy.

What you become is what you made of
yourself. I have many children as you can
see...but I am here to tell you... I might have
laid out the foundation on my children.. but
what they have become is what they chose,
and did for themselves and deserve all the
credit.

Too bad we all can't have the same attitude
with the government.

Some times life is too weird....

I saw a story about a new drink that is out
called Relax. (you can't make these things up)
and it is suppose to relax you for a half of hour
or so. But as the guy who was questioned about
it said, it was like a placebo. He didn't feel anything.

What I thought was weird about this... was it
is marketed for relaxing.. when you can't on your
own..
Like Red Bull is for those time when you need a
extra boost of energy.

Am I the only one who see a parallel with drugs?
You know...uppers and downers?

Well,the Jig is Up...

Seems the city of Spokane has seen a new way to
get more money. That is taxing the vendors who sell
at the local Farmer's Market that happens to be on
church property. In their parking lot.

When this hits, you can bet other towns will follow,
and of course, drift across the state line to Idaho.

I realize that some of these people who sell their
veggie, fruit and etc. it is a business for them. But
there is also some little old ladies or men who grows
extra stuff in their gardens and take it down to the
Farmer's Market to make pocket change. Well, that
will have to stop. As they don't make enough to pay
the taxes on it.

Who collects it? Do they have an envelope they mail off?
And are Yard Sales close behind in the tax venue?

Verizon, you make me laugh....

I am sure a lot of you have gotten the ad in the mail like this. But it always makes
me laugh...

First of all, see the GUARANTEED TO NEVER GO UP
can you read the small print? Well, after the part
about $29.99 a month, you will read the tiny print that
says: w/-2yr agreement speeds up to 3 Mbps. So does
that mean NEVER is only for 2 years?

But it gets better.. see this one with the price of $17.99
which looks just like the paper ad I got in the mail? Well,
that was on their site when I went to check to see if it was
even available here. (So the paper ad gives you a price
that is $12 more than what they could give you, if you went on
line.)

Then there is the tiny print on the back of the paper ad from the
mail. really got to watch this stuff.... I separated this as they
had it all running together...
Customer Respect Group's 2009 Customer Service Study of Telecommunications
Website. ???

Offer for new residential HSI customers w/VZ voice service. subject to
credit review. (HSI high speed internet)

$99 early termination fee.
One time charges of up to $60. (where was that listed and for what)
Price Guarantee applies to base internet rate excluding taxes and surcharges.
So those can go up, right? so much for NEVER GO UP
Changes to service plan or VZ discontinuation of high speed internet to your
location cancels offer. (so much for NEVER GO UP)
Add'l chrges, taxes and terms apply. that isn't listed in the ad..Service availability (see below) and speeds may vary.
did you see that where they had the price listed? not even an * to say
look on back page...
HSI will provisioned at up to 1.5Mbps or up to 3 Mbps based on VZ line
now the front ad with the price says up to 3, but doesn't say as low
as 1.5Mbps.
qualification requirements. Valid 6/21/09 to 9/30/09. 2009 Verizon.

And finally, up above says....Service availability ...that is why I went
to their site. See I have been getting something like this for years about
fast speed internet... and every time I have checked... well, they never heard of
Kootenai the town, so it is never availability. Even when I
checked today.

So here it is, price will NEVER go up, yet it is only good for the 2 years.
AND...it isn't even available. Now they have to send this add to my house,
so you would think they would NOT send to my zip code as we can't get it
from here.

YES, Verizon, you make me laugh...oh, the other thing, I have had 4
friends who had Verizon Internet in the past... all 4 of them dumped it
with in a month. Now where did I put the paper shredder?
Guess they better stick with their phone business, they do pretty well
there...